TRIUMPH - “The Edges Are Worn Off”

February 20, 2008, 7 years ago

Special Report By Martin Popoff

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Plans continue for TRIUMPH’s reunion show at Sweden Rock. No further touring has been cast in stone, but RIK EMMETT reveals that the band might be looking at more dates in the summer as well as a tour proper starting “Memorial Day 2009.”
“The edges are worn off as far as I’m concerned,” says drummer Gil Moore, explaining to BW&BK the state of relations within the band at the moment. “And I think they’ve worn off as far as Rik and Mike are concerned. You know, I can’t speak for anybody other than myself, but my sense of it is, if it was not for the personal relationship, we wouldn’t be doing this. You know, the motivation for each person is different, to do it, but I know from my point of view, the meetings that we’ve had, I wanted to make sure that whatever we were going to do was fun, and we were going to do it because we want to do it, and if it wasn’t for that, it would be the end of it. Really, it’s an experiment to go play one or two shows to see how we gel on stage again, and to see whether it’s something we want to pursue, or see if it’s going to just be a one-off experience. We’ll just have to let nature take its course.”
“But I found that what really brought us together was going through the first Hall Of Fame ceremony. A lot of the hostilities that there were there previously had melted, when we were in a face-to-face situation. And when we went out, spent time, like having dinner and so on, we actually laughed so hard our sides hurt. For me it was a really good start, at the beginning, for our relationship. But playing in a band is a bit like a marriage, you know? Sometimes you get these situations where husbands and wives say and do things to each other that they regret later, and sometimes they are able to put it all aside and keep their marriage together. Other times they get a divorce. And I guess, we just got remarried (laughs), so keep your fingers crossed for us.”
“We are thinking of touring North America, but it’s premature,” continues Gil. “It’s just one of those things that we are kicking around. We are more concerned with, at this point, seeing if we have fun playing together, and if we find out that the band is sounding the way we want to have it, and you know, how much fun can we actually have if we go out there? A lot of it is about comradeship and the adventure factor. Triumph is never going to be a band that just tours and tours and tours, like reunion tour after reunion tour (laughs). We’re not going there. So what we’re going to do is, we’re going to take each segment of what we do in the future as an individual project, and you know, see what makes sense. I just kind of look at it that we need to do things that the fans would maybe prefer us to do, and that our families would prefer us to do, not what agents or promoters want us to do, or what might be the best thing to do business-wise. Those will not be the priorities. We don’t want to get too bent out of shape. If we had a plan, we’d say, ‘Well, here’s the plan.’ But we don’t have a plan (laughs). Our plan is to not have a plan. Which, in essence, it makes it kind more fun.”